Evolution And Mormonism

[ERayR]

Perhaps we are overlooking the obvious... I'm still learning Hebrew, so pehaps others on here can confirm this? but the word that is translated "create" does not originate from an ex-Nihlo type of concept -

Isa 45:7 I form ³³³⁵ the light ²¹⁶, and create ¹²⁵⁴ darkness ²⁸²²: I make ⁶²¹³ peace ⁷⁹⁶⁵, and create ¹²⁵⁴ evil ⁷⁴⁵¹: I the LORD ³⁰⁶⁸ do ⁶²¹³ all these [things].

1254 - בָּרָא - create - bara' means to "shape, form, fashion"... transform - not make something from nothing. a better translation would be:

I transform the darkness into light, I transform - רַע - unkindness - into - שָׁלוֹם - friendship/peace, I the Lord do all these things. ( because God does not create darkness - 1 John 1:5 God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.)

Here is another site discussing what the original word for create actually means - that it means transform (evolve)

http://www.ancient-h.../5_creator.html

The above goes along quite nicely with:

(Doctrine and Covenants | Section 93:29)

29 Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be.

We were not ex-Nihlo created, we were transformed (evolved).

and what does it say about the animals? Does it say they were ex-Nihlo created from the ground? no, it tells us they were transformed, evolved - at least that is what the Hebrew seems to be saying to me.

http://www.bluelette...1&t=KJV#conc/21

Again we see the word: ברא bara'

Gen 1:21 And God transformed/organized/evolved the great whales, and every living creature that moveth...

It is not an ex-Nihlo kind of a deal, it's a transformation/evolution kind of a statement, at least that is what seems like a more accurate translation to me.

You have set up a false dichotomy. It does not have to be ex-nihilo or evolution. Plenty of choices in between.

[Calm]

Utah is one of the lowest ranked states for money per capita spent on education.

Why do you assume this is a Utah thing? Utah produces the most scientists per capita of any state.

And while Utah may spend less money per capita, "Utah spends a larger percentage of state dollars on education than any other state."

http://linguistics.byu.edu/faculty/eddingtond//utah.html

[ERayR]

Disprove a <10k year old creation not greater. I apologize for my numerous typos.

Straw man alert. There are positions that do not assume a young earth nor evolution.

[thesometimesaint]

I apologize. I keep forgetting that the US ranks very low in science education amongst the wealthier nations of the world. The US ranks 23rd amongst science abilities for grade 9 students and 27th amongst graduate degrees in math and sciences. Utah is one of the lowest ranked states for money per capita spent on education.

When someone here mentions the soft tissue found, recovered from a dinosaur and links it as proof that dinaosaurs existed just thousands of years ago, I can only surmise the science proficiency or lack of same ranks at the very bottom of the scale. It means that the person has neither read nor comprehended the original article from Science Magazine or the follow-up from Smithsonian.

Some 1/4 of the adult population of the US still believes the sun revolves around the earth. Sheesh

[semlogo]

The evidence for intelligent design in nature is everywhere. DNA is just one of a myriad of things that show proof of intelligent design. Evolution does in fact deal with the origins of life. Every biology book I own discusses the origins of life and how it "evolved" from non-life into life. This is one area of evolution that evolutionists know is a part of their theory but are scared by it and so try to confuse others as if they were stupid. My science isnt devoid of God. In fact, I include God in all facets of my learning. God is the greatest scientist of all.

You can claim that DNA is evidence for anything at all including alien tinkering, but you have nothing with which to back up that claim or to connect current DNA evidence to any kinds of intelligent designer.

Evolution simply does not deal with the origins of life. You are mistaken. You seem ill-informed on scientific matters.

[semlogo]

I have no misunderstanding of "evidence". Scientists can indeed replicate certain principles and laws found in the solar system. Those are instances of true evidence and correct scientific theory. How the solar system was formed is more philisophical theory just as evolution is at this point. The hard evidence for both lack scientific credibility by their own definitions.

Science can replicate "certain principles" of evolution in the lab as well. But of course evidence that supports evolution does not exist in your reality.

[ERayR]

I apologize. I keep forgetting that the US ranks very low in science education amongst the wealthier nations of the world. The US ranks 23rd amongst science abilities for grade 9 students and 27th amongst graduate degrees in math and sciences. Utah is one of the lowest ranked states for money per capita spent on education.

False assumption alert. The amount of money spent is not indicative of the quality of education produced.

When someone here mentions the soft tissue found, recovered from a dinosaur and links it as proof that dinaosaurs existed just thousands of years ago, I can only surmise the science proficiency or lack of same ranks at the very bottom of the scale. It means that the person has neither read nor comprehended the original article from Science Magazine or the follow-up from Smithsonian.

I find this to be an arrogant, elitist attitude. Just because someone disagrees with you does not make them ignorant or deficient.

[ERayR]

You can claim that DNA is evidence for anything at all including alien tinkering, but you have nothing with which to back up that claim or to connect current DNA evidence to any kinds of intelligent designer.

Evolution simply does not deal with the origins of life. You are mistaken. You seem ill-informed on scientific matters.

Alien tinkering has as much solid evidence as evolution. In fact it is just an evolutionary variation. Evolution simply does deal with origins of life. That is what it is about. How did it all come about.

[ERayR]

Science can replicate "certain principles" of evolution in the lab as well. But of course evidence that supports evolution does not exist in your reality.

Can they replicate it without intelligent intervention?

And evidence of other explanations does not exist in your reality.

Edited March 12, 2013 by ERayR

[semlogo]

Perhaps you could explain how it is possible that soft tissue can even survive in any condition in the earth for 50+ million years. You certainly cant escape the fact that the soft tissue contains carbon, so why don't they carbon date it?

The limit for carbon dating is about 62,000 years.

If you want to learn about soft tissue embedded in fossils, I suggest you seek out reputable sources, not fringe ID sites.

http://www.smithsoni...e/dinosaur.html

“The reason it hasn’t been discovered before is no right-thinking paleontologist would do what Mary did with her specimens. We don’t go to all this effort to dig this stuff out of the ground to then destroy it in acid,” says dinosaur paleontologist Thomas Holtz Jr., of the University of Maryland. “It’s great science.” The observations could shed new light on how dinosaurs evolved and how their muscles and blood vessels worked. And the new findings might help settle a long-running debate about whether dinosaurs were warmblooded, coldblooded—or both.

Meanwhile, Schweitzer’s research has been hijacked by “young earth” creationists, who insist that dinosaur soft tissue couldn’t possibly survive millions of years. They claim her discoveries support their belief, based on their interpretation of Genesis, that the earth is only a few thousand years old. Of course, it’s not unusual for a paleontologist to differ with creationists. But when creationists misrepresent Schweitzer’s data, she takes it personally: she describes herself as “a complete and total Christian.” On a shelf in her office is a plaque bearing an Old Testament verse: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

...

In the course of testing a B. rex bone fragment further, Schweitzer asked her lab technician, Jennifer Wittmeyer, to put it in weak acid, which slowly dissolves bone, including fossilized bone—but not soft tissues. One Friday night in January 2004, Wittmeyer was in the lab as usual. She took out a fossil chip that had been in the acid for three days and put it under the microscope to take a picture. “[The chip] was curved so much, I couldn’t get it in focus,” Wittmeyer recalls. She used forceps to flatten it. “My forceps kind of sunk into it, made a little indentation and it curled back up. I was like, stop it!” Finally, through her irritation, she realized what she had: a fragment of dinosaur soft tissue left behind when the mineral bone around it had dissolved. Suddenly Schweitzer and Wittmeyer were dealing with something no one else had ever seen. For a couple of weeks, Wittmeyer said, it was like Christmas every day.

...

Further discoveries in the past year have shown that the discovery of soft tissue in B. rex wasn’t just a fluke. Schweitzer and Wittmeyer have now found probable blood vessels, bone-building cells and connective tissue in another T. rex, in a theropod from Argentina and in a 300,000-year-old woolly mammoth fossil. Schweitzer’s work is “showing us we really don’t understand decay,” Holtz says. “There’s a lot of really basic stuff in nature that people just make assumptions about.”

Young-earth creationists also see Schweitzer’s work as revolutionary, but in an entirely different way. They first seized upon Schweitzer’s work after she wrote an article for the popular science magazine Earth in 1997 about possible red blood cells in her dinosaur specimens. Creation magazine claimed that Schweitzer’s research was “powerful testimony against the whole idea of dinosaurs living millions of years ago. It speaks volumes for the Bible’s account of a recent creation.”

This drives Schweitzer crazy. Geologists have established that the Hell Creek Formation, where B. rex was found, is 68 million years old, and so are the bones buried in it. She’s horrified that some Christians accuse her of hiding the true meaning of her data. “They treat you really bad,” she says. “They twist your words and they manipulate your data.” For her, science and religion represent two different ways of looking at the world; invoking the hand of God to explain natural phenomena breaks the rules of science. After all, she says, what God asks is faith, not evidence. “If you have all this evidence and proof positive that God exists, you don’t need faith. I think he kind of designed it so that we’d never be able to prove his existence. And I think that’s really cool.”

Edited March 12, 2013 by semlogo

[semlogo]

And evidence of other explanations does not exist in your reality.

Sure they do. Just show me something credible to back it up.

[semlogo]

Alien tinkering has as much solid evidence as evolution. In fact it is just an evolutionary variation. Evolution simply does deal with origins of life. That is what it is about. How did it all come about.

There is no evidence for alien tinkering. There is a mountain of evidence for evolution. You are simply ill informed on this issue.

The study of the origins of life is called abiogenesis.

Edited March 12, 2013 by semlogo

[ERayR]

Sure they do. Just show me something credible to back it up.

There is no evidence for alien tinkering. There is a mountain of evidence for evolution. You are simply ill informed on this issue.

The study of the origins of life is called abiogenesis.

I resent your false assumptions and elitist attitude. I have not stated my position but only pointed out the shortcomings of your own position. You respond with a closed minded dogmatism that I am not educated enough to discuss this with you. The arrogant learn nothing. Not because there is nothing to learn but because they don't recognize there own shortcomings.

[semlogo]

I resent your false assumptions and elitist attitude. I have not stated my position but only pointed out the shortcomings of your own position. You respond with a closed minded dogmatism that I am not educated enough to discuss this with you. The arrogant learn nothing. Not because there is nothing to learn but because they don't recognize there own shortcomings.

My position is the mainstream scientific position and can be defended with decades of harmonious, internally-consistent evidence. Offer something similar and you will find me very open minded indeed.

Edited March 12, 2013 by semlogo

[thesometimesaint]

Alien tinkering has as much solid evidence as evolution. In fact it is just an evolutionary variation. Evolution simply does deal with origins of life. That is what it is about. How did it all come about.

No evolution does not deal with the origins of life. It specifically only deals with the changes life has undergone since it began.

[media=]

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

Edited March 12, 2013 by thesometimesaint

[ERayR]

There is no evidence for alien tinkering. There is a mountain of evidence for evolution. You are simply ill informed on this issue.

The study of the origins of life is called abiogenesis.

Alien tinkering is a way of taking the chance out of evolution. It is a form of evolutionary thought. Really a form of ID replacing God with aliens but all safely in the evolutionary camp.

If you are going to assume a superior education positions you really ought to learn to spell better or at least get somebody to show you how to use spell check.

[mfbukowski]

Of course there are alternative explanations. There are alternative explanations for everything. What matters is how compelling each explanation is to each of us. Listen up and choose.

If you learn art history you will see that these styles represent cultural norms- ie- they "drew things that way".

When you rip them from the context and call them things they are not you totally miss the message. It is like calling the inverted pentagrams on the Nauvoo temple "satanic" or saying that a representation of a "compass" is clearly a teepee.

You might as well prove that people in the 12th century wore golden hats because icons from that era have halos. Before taking if farther, look at the cultural context and see what is real.

I was surprised there were no Chinese dragons shown, proving that dinosaurs lived longer in China.

[ERayR]

Sure they do. Just show me something credible to back it up.

In the immortal words of Rhett Butler to Scarlett O'Hara "Frankly my dear I don't give a d..." what you want to believe concerning this issue.

[ERayR]

If you learn art history you will see that these styles represent cultural norms- ie- they "drew things that way".

When you rip them from the context and call them things they are not you totally miss the message. It is like calling the inverted pentagrams on the Nauvoo temple "satanic" or saying that a representation of a "compass" is clearly a teepee.

You might as well prove that people in the 12th century wore golden hats because icons from that era have halos. Before taking if farther, look at the cultural context and see what is real.

I was surprised there were no Chinese dragons shown, proving that dinosaurs lived longer in China.

I am aware of that. My objective was simply that there are alternative explanations. The merits of those alternatives is very much a point of discussion.

[thesometimesaint]

In the immortal words of Rhett Butler to Scarlett O'Hara "Frankly my dear I don't give a d..." what you want to believe concerning this issue.

Semlogo can speak for herself. However when making claims about the Natural world it is best to be able to back up those claims with verifiable evidence.

The Moon isn't made of green cheese. Pi isn't exactly three, and Adam and Eve didn't ride around on dinosaurs.

Edited March 12, 2013 by thesometimesaint

[Calm]

Utah is one of the lowest ranked states for money per capita spent on education.

One of my husband's (a native Utahan) heros: http://www.dinosaurjim.com/index.html

PS: I transferred from Illinois to California through Utah in middleschool. My first year in California was basically a repeat of what I had already learned in Utah and before that Illinois and contrary to my previous homework habits, I had to take home homework once in my four years of highschool in California....so if Utah is supposed to be low in education value, I would hate to see where California's setting is at (and since I am a native Californian this troubles me greatly).

Edited March 12, 2013 by calmoriah

[thesometimesaint]

One of my husband's (a native Utahan) heros: http://www.dinosaurjim.com/index.html

PS: I transferred from Illinois to California through Utah in middleschool. My first year in California was basically a repeat of what I had already learned in Utah and before that Illinois and contrary to my previous homework habits, I had to take home homework once in my four years of highschool in California....so if Utah is supposed to be low in education value, I would hate to see where California's setting is at (and since I am a native Californian this troubles me greatly).

I tend to agree. There are many factors in the education any one individual receives, and money is just one factor. However it is an important factor.

[ERayR]

Semlogo can speak for herself. However when making claims about the Natural world it is best to be able to back up those claims with verifiable evidence.

The Moon isn't made of green cheese. Pi isn't exactly three, and Adam and Eve didn't ride around on dinosaurs.

And I have not made such claims as that. The only real claim I have made is that your evidence is not as solid or as convincing as you purport it to be.

So that you all can cease contributing positions to me that I do not hold, here is my position. I do not have a position. After much study on the matter some years ago I came to the conclusion it was an issue that was not all that important to my salvation. The only thing bothers me is a position that, to me, negates the fall and atonement. And yes I have read your rationalizations on the issue, Just not convincing to me. Do I have a favorite explanation? No, not yet.. Am I a young earth advocate? Definitely not. So that still leaves me with a lot of area to wander around in when I feel like it.

So that is why I quoted Rhett Butler to Scarlett O'Hara. With the exception noted I really don't care.

Edited March 12, 2013 by ERayR

[thesometimesaint]

And I have not made such claims as that. The only real claim I have made is that your evidence is not as solid or as convincing as you purport it to be.

So that you all can cease contributing positions to me that I do not hold, here is my position. I do not have a position. After much study on the matter some years ago I came to the conclusion it was an issue that was not all that important to my salvation. The only thing bothers me is a position that, to me, negates the fall and atonement. And yes I have read your rationalizations on the issue, Just not convincing to me. Do I have a favorite explanation? No, not yet.. Am I a young earth advocate? Definitely not. So that still leaves me with a lot of area to wander around in when I feel like it.

So that is why I quoted Rhett Butler to Scarlett O'Hara. With the exception noted I really don't care.

Fair enough. While I believe there is more than sufficient evidence to support evolution, and a multi-billion year old earth I've never made it as part of my salvation.

[danielwoods]

The limit for carbon dating is about 62,000 years.

If you want to learn about soft tissue embedded in fossils, I suggest you seek out reputable sources, not fringe ID sites.

http://www.smithsoni...e/dinosaur.html

The data are the data.

How one interprets the data is where people have diverging opinions. One's interpretation rests on one's world view and/or faith or belief. IF one is persuaded that our Earth is 4.6 billion years old, then when reviewing this new data, the obvious conclusion is exactly as this scientist stated, "showing us we really don’t understand decay". However, if one believes the Earth isn't old, but very young by comparison, then the data confirms their suspicion and is what they would expect to find.

Neither position is scientific or testable, it simply is their world view talking, or their faith if you will.